Twenty years ago the wave of success carrying Canadian rock darlings and MuchMusic staple Honeymoon Suite started its decline to little more than a swell. The fame and fortune that began with the simple yet infectious guitar driven anthem ‘New Girl Now’ in 1983 – an oddity on Canuck commercial rock radio at the time – and carried through the band’s second album, The Big Prize, fizzled in the aftermath of their third record, Racing After Midnight. Unlike most acts faced with having to go back to the drawing board, however, guitarist Derry Grehan and vocalist Johnnie Dee forged onward, keeping the name alive through assorted Best Of compilations, a few all original studio albums, and constant touring using a revolving door of musicians. Long time fans came and went with each new outing, peeking their heads in to see if anything remained of the band that had exploded on the scene so many years earlier. More often than not they went away disappointed. When word came down in 2007 that the original line-up was touring, however, those same people took notice, and it was only a matter of time until the buzz of a new studio album featuring the beloved five piece was confirmed as fact.

Not quite a year later, the original Honeymoon Suite has delivered the aptly titled Clifton Hill (more on that later). Grehan refers to it as “a throwback to the band’s ‘80s style.” The fans that have continued to hold on to hope are thinking “it’s about fucking time.”

“It kind of put the cart in front of the horse a little bit because we did the reunion before the record,” says Grehan of putting the band back together. “I was going through this really creative phase, writing a lot of songs, and the offer from Frontiers came in to do a record, so all these things came together quite nicely all at once. Me and Johnnie (Dee/vocals) were half way through writing the record, and I was seeing a lot of older bands getting back together. We never stopped touring, but as you know we had a lot of different side players, and even though it was good it had always been in the back of my mind to get the original line-up back together. There was this chemistry we had, and I wanted to hear that sound again. I just made some calls, fully expecting that it wouldn’t happen, and everybody came back with a ‘yes.’”

The dissolution of the original Honeymoon Suite line-up began with keyboardist Ray Coburn’s departure in 1986 prior to the recordings for Racing After Midnight. Produced by Ted Templeman of Van Halen fame, the record was expected to break the band in the US but failed to do so. Coburn returned briefly in 1989, but by 1991 he, bassist Gary Lalonde and drummer Dave Betts had jumped ship, seemingly for good.

“I guess we got bored with each other,” offers Grehan. “I think a lot of bands probably find that after so many records it’s just the same thing over and over. I think Johnnie and I thought we could do better. You know that kind of crap; we wanted to grow musically, because when you’ve been with the same players for 10 years you get antsy and you wonder what it’s like to play with other people.”

There were no hard feelings on either side, however, making the return of Honeymoon Suite’s prodigal sons a relatively stress free affair.

“First of all, we all remained friends, which is something you don’t find in a lot of groups after they break up. That was a big hurdle we didn’t have to deal with. And then it was just a matter of logistics. Some of the guys hadn’t played in a long time, and I think the hardest part was getting the dust off the drums and get them back into playing. It was just a matter of a lot of rehearsal.”

The touring that followed was a test, then, to prove the five could still work as a unit.

“Yeah, exactly,” says Grehan. “You can rehearse all you want, but it’s playing live that matters. The second show these guys did was in front of 20,000 people, so it was a baptism by fire. Johnnie and I play live all the time, so I just have fun, and the more people the better. The guys were a bit freaked out walking out in front of so many people after so long. It was good for them, though. It kicked their asses and got them playing. As far as the record goes it’s all part and parcel. Johnnie and I were already into it so we brought the guys in on some of the stuff. The whole thing turned out great.”

On top of the original line-up, Grehan and Dee brought in producer Tom Treumuth, the man behind the mixing board for the Honeymoon Suite debut.

“Tom has become our manager in the last couple years,” Grehan reveals. “I was talking about things coming full circle, so it’s kind of bizarre having our manager and producer and the original band working together again. Being away from everyone so long and then having them all come back into the fold, it’s like they never left. Clifton Hill is definitely a better sounding record than Lemon Tongue or Dreamland because there’s more of a budget and we had Tom producing it. We just put more effort into it and I believe we had better material to work with all around.”
“That’s why we called the album Clifton Hill, because we’re revisiting that whole Niagara Falls theme,” he adds. “That picture on the cover is from the ‘80s, back when Clifton Hill was really cheesy. I wanted that vibe. We’re going back to our roots, and I wanted to suggest The Big Prize as well by having a black and white cover with the same logo.”

Musically, Clifton Hill is anything but cheesy. The songs are short and sweet, with only one clearing the four minute mark (!), and while they lack the bombast of hits like ‘Burning In Love’ and ‘Bad Attitude’ there is a definite sense of purpose. Grehan’s playing, for example, hasn’t been this lively in years, and he paints a rich canvas of riffs from beginning to end like he used to.

“The whole record was written by me and Johnnie, so it was just the headspace that I was in,” Grehan explains. “The Big Prize is probably my favourite Honeymoon Suite record, it’s probably the best one sonically, and we were coming full circle in a lot of ways so I wanted to revisit that sound. It wasn’t a conscious effort, it was just a what was coming out of me at the time. I went back to the way I used to write, which was me picking up a guitar and trying to write songs quickly. I think those are the ones that come out the best. Like ‘New Girl Now’; I wrote that in 20 minutes. This album is less thinking, more open, just simple melodic rock. Like the opening riff of ‘She Ain’t Alright’, I’m just having fun playing guitar again.”
“I think there’s a real variety of music on the new album,” he adds. “If you listen to all our records you can hear that there’s a variety, like having ‘Wave Babies’ and ‘Burning In Love’ on the same record. I think that’s what attracts people to Honeymoon Suite. I don’t want a record to sound the same all the way through, I like throwing different things at people to surprise them. I’m getting the sense when I talk to people that the new record has a genuine appeal.”

In discussing the past and how it relates to Honeymoon Suite’s future, conversation turns to the near legendary tale of how the band secured their original record deal with WEA after winning Toronto radio’s Q107 Homegrown competition with ‘New Girl Now’ in ‘83. A far cry from today’s seasonal American / Canadian / Finnish / Outer Mongolian Idol cattle call that lures fresh faces into the spotlight with promises of stardom.

“Yeah, we did it the old fashioned way, so I have mixed feelings about that stuff,” Grehan admits. “To me it’s just karaoke. These people want a shortcut to stardom and they’re going to pay the price sooner or later. There are some talented people that have come up through those ranks and I think they would have made it regardless, but those shows are giving the wrong impression to a lot of kids coming up that it’s easy to make it in the music business. It’s not. It’s brutal out there. There’s something to be said for longevity. These people will come out and they’ll be huge, a big flash in the pan, and they don’t have a solid foundation for a long career because they haven’t learned the ropes.”

Does it surprise you at all that the band has been around for over 25 years?

“Yeah, it does. I never thought it would last this long, especially a band like Honeymoon Suite. I thought this would be a short lived thing just by the nature of the music. We’re not like an R.E.M. or something really deep like that where you can have an artistic career, but hey, I don’t take it for granted. I keep thinking I’m going to get away from it and they keep pulling me back in (laughs).”